


Finding You

by TheGeniusCallsYou



Series: Rumbelle Showdown 2020 [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Can't Make Tea, Comfort, F/M, I don't really know how to tag it without spoiling anything, Inception - Freeform, Otherworldly delights, Round 3 Entry, Rumbelle - Freeform, Rumbelle Showdown 2020 (Once Upon a Time)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:40:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25634452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGeniusCallsYou/pseuds/TheGeniusCallsYou
Summary: Something was nagging at his mind, telling him something was off about the whole situation. The sun was a little too bright, birds a bit too loud. There had never been so many birds around the Dark Castle, had there?But Belle’s fingers were so soft, her touch so lovely he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was worrying him so. Even her skin feeling a lot colder than it should have didn’t bother him in the slightest.Or let's call it: Rumplestiltskin has a headache during the time in the Enchanted Forest. But is that it or is there more to the whole situation?
Relationships: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold
Series: Rumbelle Showdown 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1858237
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Finding You

**Author's Note:**

> My Round 3 Entry for the Rumbelle Showdown 2020 written under the penname Orion.  
> Prompts: Can't Make Tea; Otherworldly delights; Comfort
> 
> It was my final work for the event as I didn't make it to the Final Round, but I had a blast nevertheless :)
> 
> Enjoy!

Outside the Dark Castle stood a single oak tree. It was old, possibly older than Rumplestiltskin himself, being there before the Castle had even existed. Clearly visible from the window of his tower, growing bigger each year, its crown threw shade at the ground below. 

There were times he imagined his son playing around it. In those times, he could sometimes see him climbing the branches, sitting there for the whole day and sketching. He longed for days when he could see what could have been but never were, but those days became rarer as the time he could finally go to the land without magic drew closer.

Rumplestiltskin was lying on the grass, hidden in the shadows of the oak leaves, with his eyes shut tightly. His dragonhide coat nowhere in sight, he was dressed only in a plain silk shirt and leather vest. It had been ages since he had laid like that. Last time… Well, it had probably been with Bae sprawled next to him somewhere in the field, while they had watched over the sheep. Years and years ago - lifetimes even. 

He tried to keep his face blank, but in the last deal he had to take part of the magic’s price on himself, and the consequences were now manifesting themselves in the form of the pounding headache. He would probably have been better off hiding in a dark corner where no light could reach his hurting eyes, but he had discovered that the soft breeze did wonders. The grass was soft, the temperature just right, and even just for a little while, he could drop the mask of the Dark One. 

Or so he had thought.

Maybe if he were more alert, he would remember that this spot wasn’t just his anymore. There was another occupant of the castle that discovered it to be a perfect place for leisure. 

One of the twigs snapped, and Rumplestiltskin heard a stifled, surprised gasp. 

If he had more energy to spare, he would magic himself out of here in a heartbeat, but the pressure behind his eyelids was telling him it wasn’t such a great idea. Besides, it would give the other person the ammunition to tease him later.

“As much as others like to suggest otherwise - I don’t bite, dearie.”

“I know you don’t. I was just startled, that’s all.”

“Hmm.” He didn’t need to open his eyes to know the unamused look on her face. As if to prove the point, he heard the rustling of her dress and soon she was seated beside him on the ground. She was so close he could almost touch her with his head, and that proximity alone made his body stiffen. 

“I didn’t realise you were back,” she continued after making herself comfortable, not minding his sudden uneasiness. “Did you manage to tempt someone with - how did you put it? Otherworldly delights?”

Her tone was teasing, but somehow Rumplestiltskin couldn’t bring himself to feel annoyed - on the contrary. Well, he would faster swallow his tongue than admit aloud that the only otherworldly delight in his life was seated next to him. He frowned as soon as that thought came to him. No. She was just a maid - nothing more, nothing less.

“And what if I did?”

“Well, then I hope they did read the fine print.”

He scoffed, but it was cut short at the sudden spike of pain behind his eyelids. 

“Rumplestiltskin?”

“I’m fine. Just read your book.”

She always had one. Belle didn’t speak for a while, and he thought she must have turned her attention away from him, and he started to drift off a little.

“Could you raise your head a little bit?”

“What?” He asked startled, not realising he had done just as she had asked. It happened very quickly - one moment his head was in the air, then another it rested on her lap. “What are you - ”

“Shh, it’s fine. Just relax - you’re so tense, no wonder your head is hurting.”

It was so very very wrong, and Rumplestiltskin should get out of there that instant, but he was rotten to the spot. His thoughts were running miles a minute, he couldn’t stop them, but then they all came to a halt as Belle began to run her soft fingers through his hair. She brushed it from his forehead, stroked it gently and massaged his scalp with her fingertips. Her other hand was rubbing his shoulder in small circles, and slowly he could feel himself relax.

“I could still turn you into a toad you now?” He murmured, but without any conviction. Belle giggled softly, completely unaffected.

“Yes, you could, but then I would have to stop, and there would be a toad sitting on your head. Besides, it’s helping, isn’t it?”

“It’s not unhelpful,” he reluctantly admitted. 

Something was nagging at his mind, telling him something was off about the whole situation. The sun was a little too bright, birds a bit too loud. There had never been so many birds around the Dark Castle, had there?

But Belle’s fingers were so soft, her touch so lovely he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was worrying him so. Even her skin feeling a lot colder than it should have didn’t bother him in the slightest.

Why were his eyes still closed?

He opened them slowly. They were uncooperating in every bit, and it took all of his willpower to force them to obey him. When they finally did, his blood ran cold.

Belle was smiling, but her eyes - so full of life and always sparking - were now empty and unseeing, her skin deathly pale and her lips blue. There was a smudge of dried blood on the side of her head, sticking her hair together.

“Belle? What - ”

“I fell, remember?” Her voice sounded empty, the warmth from before gone. No. No, no, no. “They hurt me, and you didn’t come. I did what I had to.”

“No, Belle,” he was crying, he knew he was, and the birds had stopped chirping. “Please don’t say it. Please, don’t - ”

“I jumped because you didn’t come.”

“I didn’t know, please - ”

“I threw myself off the tower because you let me go.”

Rumplestiltskin screamed…

… and jolted awake in his bed, his breath coming in shallow gasps.

He looked around madly, not fully comprehending where or when he was. It was so dark he could barely see the end of his nose. His long hair was plastered to his forehead, and his sweaty clothes bound him like heavy shackles.

He had to calm down, but his wildly beating heart just wouldn’t slow down - a caged bird demanding freedom.

He remembered that day outside the Dark Castle. The memory was still vivid in his head, and rationally he knew it hadn’t ended as it had in the dream, but right now it was a jumble of two different sets of realities. 

No. 

Belle was alive. 

She had to be. 

_I jumped._

She hadn’t killed herself. 

_You let me go._

She was - 

His hands darted to the side, frantically petting the bed, looking for any trace of a person who should be there. 

But the spot beside him was empty and no matter how madly he wished otherwise, it was. His hands were shaking, and he knew he was losing it, mumbling nonsense, and almost crying from the sheer terror that threatened to overwhelm him. The voice in his head whispered only one thing into his ear.

Dead. Dead. DEAD.

“Rumple?" 

He turned around so fast it could be magic. The room wasn’t dark anymore, and he wasn’t alone. Belle stood in the doorway, her left hand still on the light switch, the right one clutching a glass of water. She must have noticed the panic on his face because she put the glass on the nightstand and quickly sat down on the bed next to him.

"Rumple, what happened?” she asked, checking him over. He didn’t know what she was seeing, but he knew what he was.

Her eyes were full of life. Concerned, yes, but not glazed over and dead.

There was a bitter taste in his mouth, and as his throat clenched so hard, it was hard to breathe all he was able to do was to reach out and clutch her right shoulder firmly in disbelief.

“You’re real,” he choked out, holding back tears. “You’re alive.”

Those two sentences had been enough for her to understand. She wrapped her hands around him and tugged him forward. Rumplestiltskin buried his face in the crook of her neck as his fingers twisted desperately in the material of her nighty. He knew he was clinging like a child in need of comfort, but at that moment, he couldn’t care less. 

She was here.

“You had a nightmare, didn’t you?” he nodded once not daring to let her go just yet. “If you want me to listen, I’m here.”

He swallowed hard and took a deep, ragged breath. 

“We were under the oak tree, the one outside the Dark Castle. You were playing with my hair." 

He loosened his death grip on her, and she delicately freed herself but didn’t let him move away. Instead, she pulled him down, so his head rested on her lap.

"Just like that, right?” as if to prove her words, she started to stroke his hair just like she had on that day. “Didn’t you threaten to turn me into a toad?”

“In my defence, you would make a beautiful toad.”

“I’m happy you think so. You magiced yourself out of there quite quickly, didn’t you? Were you afraid of your maid?”

“More like of what she was doing to me,” he answered with a ghost of a smile in the corner of his lips.

“Well, the feeling was mutual, I assure you. It went differently, didn’t it?”

Even if he knew it hadn’t been real, it still hurt.

“You were dead. That’s all that needs to be said,” he answered while averting his gaze from her eyes. He wasn’t strong enough to tell her more.

“I didn’t die, though. I’m still here. Regina had lied.”

“I still abandoned you.”

“You didn’t know.”

“It doesn’t matter!”

How could she be so forgiving when the fault was his?!

“Rumple,” she turned his face back up so he would look at her. The look in her eyes left him speechless, and he could do nothing more than focus on her. The light from the room surrounded her, and he could feel a warmth spreading through his entire body as if it was radiating from her, making him feel safe. “We both made mistakes, but what matters is, in the end, we have found each other.”

Belle continued to stroke his hair and face, and his heart gradually slowed down as the suffocating feeling of panic let him go bit by bit. 

His eyelids felt suddenly heavy, and he let them drop, too tired to fight. His head hurt, and for a moment, he wondered if it was due to the exhaustion or something else entirely.

“You would remember very soon, Rumple.” Belle’s voice sounded as if she was far away from him. But she couldn’t be - he could still feel her fingers threading through his hair. “We will find our way back to each other. We always do.”

He wanted to ask her what she had meant but couldn’t find his voice.

_…ective?_

“Remember, I love you.”

_Detective?_

“You will find your way back to me, Rumple.”

_Can you hear me?_

“Belle?”

_Come on, open your eyes._

“Shhh, sleep now. All will be alright.”

He wanted to ask more, but the tiredness won over, and soon all he could see was a white light. It was coming closer now, blinding him and then he could see nothing else.

He blinked his eyes sluggishly, and the white turned into a blurry shape.

Someone was leaning over him - a woman with chestnut hair and a concerned gaze. 

“Belle?” His voice was hoarse as if unused for some time.

The woman smiled and gently smoothed his hair down with care.

“It’s Isobel, but it doesn’t matter. How are you feeling?”

“Ugh, my head hurts,” he answered only now realising he was resting on her lap, just like in his dream. No - dreams. If he could call them that, they felt too real. Like memories of other lives… 

Belle - Isobel, he corrected himself, grimaced and her hand momentarily stilled in her motions.

“Yeah, you got hit pretty badly. What is the last thing you remember?"

_You. Us. Outside the Castle. In our home. Was any of it real?_

"Some guy?” He asked instead, looking around as much as he could. They were in what looked like a dark alley, somewhere between her flat and Roni’s where she worked. A man had followed her and, with a bad feeling, Weaver had gone after them.

“Yeah, you got into a scuffle when he pinned me down,” she worried her lower lip averting her eyes for a moment. “He’s gone now, must have bolted when he realised he knocked out a cop.”

“Lucky him,” he grumbled and twisted to sit up. Dark spots danced before his eyes, and then there were small, but strong arms holding him in place as he tilted to the side, stopping him from falling back down.

“Careful,” she smiled, and the look on her face was enough to banish the fog from his eyes. “If it helps, you landed a pretty good hit on him too.”

“Here’s to thinking his head hurts more than mine then.”

“I hope it does. Well, as you saved me, I could offer you tea, but I can’t make it here. I could at my place, though.”

He swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry. He searched her face for anything suspicious, but all he had found was a look in her eyes he couldn’t quite yet discern. No one had ever looked at him like that.

“Belle - sorry, Isobel,” he scolded himself.

“No, you can call me Belle, I don’t mind.” He could swear he would say anything to see her smile like that again. “Can I call you anything other than Detective?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye making him smile back - a genuine, honest smile, he couldn’t remember using for a long time.

_Rumple._

“Weaver would do for now,” he answered, wondering where the strange name in his head had come from, it wasn’t his, and yet felt right. Just as hers wasn’t Belle, yet he couldn’t call her differently.

“Weaver it is then. So, would you like to come in?" 

"I would like that very much,” he answered honestly, and as she helped him get up, he felt as if some piece inside him that he didn’t realise was missing slid back into place.


End file.
